On the Flip Side of Fast Fashion: ricRACK
The front of ricRACK’s new home on Burgundy is a shop, offering gently used clothing and costumes, fabrics and sewing notions
April 2026An educational non-profit settles into a new home in the French Quarter, where it’s raising awareness on sustainability – and offering fun, colorful solutions through the art of sewing.
– by Kim Ranjbar
- photos by Ellis Anderson
This column is underwritten in part by Karen Hinton & Howard Glaser
Tucked away in an early 20th century brick building only a few blocks from Canal Street, the sewists at ricRACK are changing the city one piece of fabric at a time. Although the nonprofit “thrift shop” is a recent arrival to the French Quarter, its story began nearly 15 years ago.
Founder Alison Parker is a University of Florida graduate who, after earning a degree in costume design, got her first break working for Cirque du Soleil. Later, she was hired to help create the circus scenes in the 2003 film Big Fish, which ignited her interest in film and television.
ricRACK’s new location at 321 Burgundy Street in the French Quarter
Alison Parker, founder of ricRack, photo courtesy Alison Parker
Her star-studded resume includes dayplaying on the "Late Show with David Letterman" and the 2007 horror film I am Legend, and designing for theater productions such as Lovelace: The Musical, Shakespeare in the Park's Much Ado About Nothing, and the 2013 debut of The View UpStairs, a musical based on the Upstairs Lounge Fire.
In 2007, she jumped at the opportunity to assist famed costume designer April Napier, working on location for Black Water Transit, a film shot in New Orleans. “I decided I’d like to stay here to get away from the New York City scramble,” admits Parker. “And the film industry was really starting to take off here.”
After years of buying new fabric, clothing and costumes, Parker became more and more cognizant of the textile waste her industry (and others) produced, and she wanted to do something about it.
“A book came out in 2012 called Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline. She said there’s enough fabric manufactured every year to wrap around the earth three times. I kept thinking, where is it all going?”
Parker noticed a deficiency while looking around for sewing classes to expand her own skill set, and hit on a plan. As a child who was taught home economics in middle school, she was truly dismayed.
“It was a huge part of growth, learning, skills and human connectedness the children were missing out on,” she said, “so I thought maybe I could combine these two. There’s a lot of waste and a need to sew.”
She began crowdfunding to raise money for equipment while simultaneously sending hundreds of emails to local costume companies and theaters for donations, seeking everything from fabrics to notions like buttons, zippers and thread.
In the summer of 2012, ricRACK officially opened, with Parker operating out of her house. “I was doing all outreach,” she explains. “Our first year we did a lot with the YMCA, after-school programs, summer camps, and kids art classes.”
The sewing and textile recycling non-profit finally moved into its own space in Central City on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard where its offerings truly began to flourish. Highly inclusive and community-focused, ricRACK offered a wide range of sewing classes for both kids and adults.
Alison Parker teaching a children’s sewing class, photo courtesy Alison Parker
They also raised awareness of textile waste and taught visitors how to shop smart and extend the life of their clothing to “ease the burden fast fashion has on our planet.”
Last summer, ricRACK had to pull up stakes when the owner of the Central City building decided to sell. In the hunt for a new location, they discovered an ideal space on Burgundy Street. It formerly housed a couture sewing spot called Papermaple Studios.
“It was basically turnkey,” says Parker. “They had all the tables built out, all the sewing stations . . . everything was all in place. It’s a beautiful, state-of-the-art space. We thought, the students who come in here will be so inspired!”
Now that ricRACK has been established for over a decade, donations pour in from all over the city – from local designers and costumers to Mardi Gras krewes and interior designers.
“Just recently the Historic New Orleans Collection hit us up because they had some exhibition banners they didn’t want to throw away. Same thing with Essence Fest,” says Parker. “Fringe & Co. makes a lot of sequined costumes and they send all of their scraps to us.”
As much as they reuse and upcycle textiles, sometimes there’s an overflow. Because their whole mission would be for naught if they sent the excess off to be incinerated or dumped into landfill, ricRACK has created a circular or closed loop system.
“Scraps that can’t be reused get shipped off to a textile recycler in South Carolina (Leigh Fibers), one of the only places in the southeast that turns it into secondary materials called “shod” used for carpet padding, insulation, sporting equipment, cars, etc. Nothing is ever thrown away.”
A sample of the insulation that’s created from “end-of-life” fabrics
Parker points to a 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office: The U.S. generates an estimated 17 million tons of textile waste per year, most of which ends up incinerated or dumped in landfills.
The waste generated from “fast fashion” has increased by 180% since 2000, leading to the formation of "mountains" of discarded clothing in Africa, Asia and South America. These mountains will take hundreds of years to decompose, all the while leaching chemicals, polluting our groundwater, oceans and air.
In addition to their recycling work, the new ricRACK location features a creative reuse shop where customers can browse through used costumes and clothing for sale, as well as fabric and a vast variety of sewing notions. And since it’s now one of only two fabric stores in the city of New Orleans, sewers from around the city and visitors from across the country seek it out.
Michie Cooper, a Bywater artist, with a few of the fabric finds she discovered at ricRack.
Shel Roumillat, Creative Reuse Store manager
ricRACK board chair Lauren Anderson is a consultant and nonprofit coach with a passion for quilting and fiber art.
The non-profit offers a slew of sewing classes and clubs for both kids and adults, with donated materials all provided. Classes range from amateur to advanced specialties in sewing, crochet, kite-making and embroidery. In the summertime, ricRACK hosts a Teen Slo-Fashion Summer Camp with hands-on training in sustainable clothing creation, mending and upcycling "enabling teenagers to develop sewing skills while promoting eco-conscious, personalized style over fast fashion."
“We do quite a few classes on repairing and mending, too. We’re getting ready to do one that’s needle felting on denim, to create patches on your jeans,” says Parker. “It goes hand in hand. You can’t really say ‘don’t throw away your textiles, reuse them’ without providing some skills for it.”
Several sewing stations that are available for classes or for rent to sewers without their own machines
Volunteers working with remnants
Private and group sewing classes are available at ricRACK
It’s a given that every year, ricRACK celebrates Earth Day [Wednesday, April 22, 2026] setting up kids’ crafting areas. This year the shop is hosting its first RE-Makers Market. This inaugural event and wholly unique market will be held in ricRACK’s gorgeous atrium, featuring vendors who "reuse or encompass sustainability or upcycling in their art."
The atrium where special markets, showcases and events like the RE-Makers Market will be held on Earth Day, April 22, 2026
A favorite annual Earth Day feature is a showcase of creations made with textile waste.
“We give local designers a bag of ‘fill in the blank.’ The first year, the bag was filled with a bunch of men’s ties and then we did upholstery samples, tablecloth linens, – and last year we did old Mardi Gras tunics.
“But I can’t tell you what this year’s challenge is yet. It's a secret,” she said with a laugh.
ricRACK Inc.
321 Burgundy Street
